Civilization VI Tier List (Civ 6)

In this article, we decided to put together the ultimate Civ 6 Tier List.

We will be ranking everything from leaders and civilizations, to pantheons, to wonders and natural wonders for the complete game (vanilla plus Rise and Fall, Gathering Storm, and New Frontier).

With so many expansions added, Civilization 6 players can now pick from a long list of civilizations and leaders before starting the game.

As of Gathering Storm (and New Frontier Pass), there are 58 leaders/civilizations in the game if you take into account all of the expansions.

Clearly, different leaders have different strengths and weaknesses, and when you compound other elements of this gameplay (such as which victory condition you are pursuing, or which pantheon you should select), this game becomes all the more complex… which prompted us to prepare this Civ 6 Tier List.

This, of course, is not a bad thing: Civilization is notoriously addictive and one of the most re-playable games we’ve ever enjoyed, largely due to its layers of depth and freedom to play your own way. Throw in some randomness each time you start on a new map, and you have a compelling experience every time you hit “Start Game”.

Civ 6 Introduction

Civ 6 Tier List (Civilization 6)

Without further ado, see below for the ultimate Civ 6 Tier List where we have ranked 58 leaders and civilizations in order to see who is the best and worst. Scroll down further to see a breakdown by victory type.

S-Tier

• Japan (Hojo Tokimune)
• Russia (Peter)
• Portugal (João III)
• Australia (John Curtin)
• Maori (Kupe)
• America (Bullmoose Teddy)

A-Tier

• Greece (Gorgo)
• Hungary (Matthias Corvinus)
• Egypt (Cleopatra)
• Gran Columbia (Simon Bolivar)
• Brazil (Pedro II)
• Persia (Cyrus)
• Arabia (Saladin)
• America (Rough Rider Teddy)

B-Tier

• Korea (Seondeok)
• Greece (Pericles)
• Ethiopia (Menelik II)
• Maya (Lady Six Sky)
• Phoenician (Dido)
• Sumeria (Gilgamesh)
• Babylon (Hammurabi)
• Khmer (Jayavarman VII)
• Mali (Mansa Musa)
• China (Qin Shi Huang)
• China (Kublai Khan)
• Spain (Phillip II)

C-Tier

• Inca (Pachacuti)
• Dutch (Wilhelmina)
• Nubia (Amanitore)
• Aztec (Montezuma)
• Byzantium (Basil II)
• Polish (Jadwiga)
• Georgia (Tamar)

D-Tier

• Vietnam (Bà Triệu)
• Indonesia (Gitarja)
• Germany (Frederick Barbarossa)
• Rome (Trajan)
• Sweden (Kristina)
• Canada (Wilfrid Laurier)
• France (Catherine de Medici)
• Ottoman (Suleiman)

F-Tier

• England (Victoria)
• France (Magnificence Catherine)
• Mongolia  (Genghis Khan)
• Mongolia (Kublai Khan)
• Zulu (Shaka)
• Macedon (Alexander)
• Gaul (Ambiorix)
• Mapuche (Lautaro)
• England (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
• Scythia (Tomyris)
• Kongo (Mvemba a Nzinga)

LOL-Tier

• France (Eleanor Aquitaine)
• Scotland (Robert the Bruce)
• Cree (Poundmaker)
• India (Ghandi)
• Norway (Harald Hardrada)
• India (Chandragupta)

Civ 6 Tier List: Best Leaders and Civilizations by Victory Condition

So firstly, before you jump up and down screaming how “Gold” is not a victory condition: we know. However, Gold is one of those elements in the game that can substantially boost your path towards any victory type if utilized correctly. It can help you defend, buy buildings and barter. Due to its significance, it is important that it is considered when ranking the overall ability of Civs.

Once you decide which type of victory you want to pursue, you need to choose a proper civilization and a good leader. Some civilizations excel in certain victory types, so be careful what you choose. For example, according to our Civ 6 Tier List, if you choose an S-Tier leader that specializes in science and religion like Arabia, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best Civ if you are going for global domination. So, be sure to consider how you intend to play: what is your ultimate goal?

Victory Type Legend:

• Dom: Domination
• Sci: Science
• Cul: Culture
• Reli: Religion
• Dipl: Diplomacy
• Gol: Gold
• Tot: Total

Who Is the Best Leader in Civ 6?

Firstly, it’s important to emphasize that this is a subjective selection. Depending on your playstyle, and the typical strategies you employ, you could get more utility out of an F-Tier Civ than someone who misuses an S-Tier Civ. In our editorial opinion, of the S-Tier Civs, we would choose Hojo of Japan as the single best leader in Civ 6.

Our selection for Japan as the top Civilization in this game would be on the basis of their well-roundedness. Japan’s varying abilities appear throughout the early, mid, and late game. Japan’s abilities are also wide-ranging and can be useful regardless of the Victory condition that you are pursuing. This allows for an additional degree of flexibility for players who need to pivot into another direction should the game go in an unexpected direction.

Our choice for the second-best Civ would be Russia. Russia is also relatively well-rounded (a bit weaker on Science), but has an important advantage when it comes to starting bias. Since Russia starts near (or on) Tundra, this means that you will start on the edge of your continent and there won’t be anyone to your North (or South). Often, you can expand your early Civs in one direction and then also cover your West (or East). This means that during the early game, Russia is less likely to have issues where they are facing opposition from every direction. Of course, this issue fades during the later game when Naval warfare enters into the game.

Nevertheless, this gives players confidence that they have fewer fronts to worry about when they get started.

What Do All These Tiers Mean?

While the definitions below primarily apply to Civs and Leaders, you will notice that there are Civ Tier Lists further down in this article that address other elements of the game. To keep things simple, S is considered the best, followed by A, B, C, D, F, and finally LOL.

Another very important consideration is that sometimes civilizations and leaders have bonuses that do not fit under any victory condition. For example, Kublai Khan of Mongolia has the benefit of having an additional economic card slot. This is a great ability but does not fit under any of the victory conditions. So, we recommend that you check out the abilities on the next page to see which ones the official tier list above might be missing.

Civilization VI S-Tier Description

The S-Tier Civs are the best civilizations in the game.

They are always highly proficient in more than one way, allowing the player to approach the game in a more flexible manner. If, for example, you play as a very well-rounded Japan, you are not going to have many disadvantages in pursuing Domination, Science, Culture, or Religion.

S-Tier is great for new players and casual players.

Civilization VI A-Tier & B-Tier Description

Similar to S-Tier, these Civs are also flexible.

However, they are more notably disadvantaged in certain spaces. While they may still be great for certain game-play strategies, they may have notable disadvantages as well. As an example, Pedro II of Brazil is great for Culture and Religion, but it’s best to avoid domination gameplay with this Civ unless you are looking for a challenge. B-Tier is a continuation of A-Tier; these civs are slightly less well-rounded, and also have notable disadvantages.

They are still suitable for most players.

Civilization VI C-Tier, D-Tier & F-Tier Description

C-Tier is where it gets interesting because this is where pre-planning becomes important.

When selecting one of these leaders, it is ideal to know what you are pursuing from the get-go and to carefully consider each turn, because if your options are limited, you can’t afford to fall behind. D-Tier and F-Tier are similar but are more challenging.

Civilization VI LOL-Tier Description

Alright, we admit it, we invented “LOL-Tier”. However, there’s nothing funny about them. These are the most challenging Civs to play in the game because they do not have any significant advantages.

These civs are great if you are looking to test your overall ability because well-roundedness is critical.

Does the Civ 6 Tier List Apply to Both Single Player and Multiplayer?

In short, yes. This tier list is equally applicable to both multiplayer and single-player games. It ultimately depends on your competitiveness.

For a casual single-player game, if you are just relaxing and not trying to execute a perfect game plan, then don’t sweat it. The differences between the Civs are not dramatic enough to flip the game in your favor if you aren’t meticulously taking advantage of all of your Civ’s bonuses.

On the flip side, against a strong opponent, you need to utilize as many of the bonuses associated with your Civ as possible. Study up!

Civ 6 Tier List: Civ Ability Rankings

Now that we’ve shared our overall rankings, here is the breakdown of how we reached those conclusions. Categories for your reference are as follows:

• UA: Unique Ability
• LA: Leader Ability
• UB: Unique Building
• UD: Unique District
• UI: Unique Improvement
• UU: Unique Unit

Civ 6 Tier List: All Pantheons Ranked

Do not underestimate the value of Pantheons. This is one of the most important considerations of the early game. One consideration is doing the Shrine Rush, where you get Pottery first, then build A Scout and Shrine. This will allow you a greater choice of Pantheons, which is critically important, as these benefits last you the entirety of the game.

Which Pantheon in Civ 6 is the Best?

When choosing a Pantheon, it is best to select one that has an ongoing benefit regardless of your location or what geographical benefits are within your vicinity.

The best Pantheon in Civ 6 is “Religious Settlements” because you are able to capture more ground with fewer cities. This enables more flexible location selection for new Cities and allows you to grab vital strategic resources more easily (horses, iron).

Fertility Rites is a close second, but growing indefinitely isn’t necessary for Civ 6, as many of the benefits are capped at specific population numbers (ie, you need 7 populations for a successful City, and no more than 10 is necessary).

Civ 6 Tier List: Best Places of Worship

Just a friendly reminder that this is purely game-related! We are not judging anyone’s religion! The Mosque takes the cake. The additional spread by Missionaries and Apostles can add up significantly if you are actively spreading your faith across the world.

Civ 6 Tier List: Best Founder Beliefs

If you founded a religion, you are privy to some additional benefits. More specifically, you receive perks from all followers of your religion, even if they’re not part of your Civ.

Civ 6 Tier List: Best Follower Beliefs

Much less potent than the Founder beliefs, the Follower beliefs can still add a boost to your gameplay.

Civ 6 Tier List: Best Enhancer Beliefs

Wrapping up our section on Religion, Enhancer Beliefs come later in game and has mostly to do with combat and spreading your religion further.

Civ 6 Tier List: Best governments at every stage of the game:

Civ 6 Tier List: All Wonders Ranked

Similar to the Pantheons, Wonders allow ongoing benefits throughout the entirety of the game (so long as you are in control of it!). Planning around Wonders is important, because of the high amount of turns it takes to build them.

In that same amount of time, you can build several scouts, settlers, warriors, or builders, so you need to consider the opportunity cost. Is that wonder worth the trade-off, especially in the early game?

In short, some of them are worth it. Some of them are not. This list will help you see that distinction.

Which Wonder is the Best?

Pyramids are the best wonder in Civ 6. The ongoing benefit of having an extra improvement from each worker cannot be understated. Across an entire game, consider how many fewer workers you will need. If you need fewer workers, consider how many turns you can allocate to building something else in your Cities.

Civ 6 Tier List: Best Natural Wonders

Natural Wonders are less important than Pantheons and normal wonders because the benefits are localized, so the benefits only apply to the nearby tiles. Nevertheless,  when settling, any one of these natural wonders can be beneficial, especially if you really milk its benefits. For example, if you were located near the Fountain of Youth, which has science and faith benefits, then it would be strongly advisable to place a Campus district and Holy Site district, which could compound the benefits. Each one of these has its perks, but it’s really a matter of luck with respect to which of these will end up near your Cities.

We would suggest checking this list whenever you run into one, so you can adjust your gameplay around the natural wonder accordingly.

Most Commonly Searched Questions

In doing all of the research for this article, we learned that there are a lot of elements to this game that people find confusing. So, here are some of the most searched questions and their answers that can hopefully shed some light on the nuances of the game.

How do you do a Culture Bomb in Civ 6?

Firstly, not every Civilization can do a Culture Bomb out of the gate. The Civs that have this ability are Poland, Australia, the Dutch, Maori, Gaul and Khmer.

• Poland: Golden Liberty (build Encamptments or Forts)
• Australia: Land Down Under (build Pastures)
• Dutch: Grote Rivieren (build harbors)
• Maori: Mana (build fishing boats)
• Gaul: Hallstatt Culture (build mines)
• Khmer: Jayavarman VII leader ability, Monasteries of the King (build holy sites)

You can also do a Culture Bomb by achieving the Enhancer Belief “Burial Grounds”, by building a Holy Site (changed in Gathering Storm to Follower Belief “Warrior Monks”.

Other methods of achieving the Culture Bomb:

• A great Engineer Mimar Sinan can grant it when building an Industrial Zone
• The World Congress resolution Border Control Treaty can also trigger a Culture Bomb upon competition of any district, to whomever wins it.

What’s the use of a National Park in Civ 6?

There are several benefits, but its best to check out our Civ 6 National Park article on the subject to get a full breakdown.  In short, its an effective feature when pursuing a Cultural Victory as it boosts tourism.

Does War Weariness Go Away in Civ 6?

War Weariness typically lasts approximately 10 turns. However, there are some complicating factors. It occurs quicker in cities that you did not originally build and it can also last longer.

Further, it won’t just go away on it’s own. You need to ensure you stop losing units, especially in foreign lands (2 for foreign lands, 1 in allied lands). One way to mitigate the effect is by working towards happiness with various amenities.

How long does the Warmonger penalty last in Civ 6 and how do you get rid of it?

The Warmonger penalty in Civ 6 depends on the level of your aggression. It decays at a rate of 0.5 per turn, so it could take hundreds of turns if you have been particularly aggressive! Consider that the declaration of a formal war costs 200 points, and you can see that this can be a very long-term problem.

In order to get rid of the Warmongering penalty in Civ 6, you need to liberate cities (instead of annexing or destroying), and if you return a city to the original owner, the penalty is erased.

Is there an optimal Build Order in Civ 6?

Yes, we have prepared an extensive guide on this subject. If you are new, we suggest playing through this guide as Trajan of Rome and this will show you the fundamentals. If you are experienced, it’s worth a read to see how your style compares!

How do you use a battering ram in Civ 6?

In order to use a Battering Ram in Civ 6, simply place it beside a City with walls, and then attack the City with other units. The battering ram is not a stand-alone unit that attacks, but rather, it enhances the strength of other units when attacking a City with walls.

The battering ram does not do anything if the City does not have walls. However, it can be devastating to a walled city as every attacking unit will receive a significant boost.

What’s an inquisition in Civ 6?

An inquisition in Civ 6 removes other religions from your cities. It is an incredibly valuable unit if you are pursuing a religious victory.

What does an Apostle do in Civ 6?

An apostle is a unit that spreads religion like missionaries but can also engage in Theological Combat. In Theological Combat, your apostle can battle other religions’ apostles and missionaries which reduces their spread accordingly. The apostle also has special abilities like launching Inquisitions (explained above) or Evangelizing Beliefs. Evangelizing beliefs involves consuming the unit but providing a very significant religious boost to the tile where he is located.

What’s the difference between the difficulty levels in Civ 6?

Generally speaking, Prince is the “normal” level where you nor the AI have any advantages.

Unfortunately, in Civ, the AI does not play more intelligently or less intelligently at different difficulty levels. Instead, what happens is that at lower difficulty levels, you end up receiving various bonuses, and at higher levels, the AI starts receiving different bonuses.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the difficulty levels in Civ 6.

How do you use a Military Engineer in Civ 6?

A military engineer builds roads, forts, railroads, silos, airstrips, and tunnels. In order to use the Military Engineer, place them on a tile that can support one of these improvements, and execute the action.

How do you form an Alliance in Civ 6?

In order to form an Alliance in Civ 6, you need to continually improve relations with another Civ until you are able to declare each other as friends. Once this is done, options will appear that allow requesting alliances. There are 5 types of alliances: Religious, Economic, Military, Research and Cultural.

How do you get an Archaeologist in Civ 6 and how do you use one?

An archaeologist can only be built in a Theater Square with an Archaeological Museum in the Industrial Era. The archaeologist can extract artifacts that are placed in the Archaeological Museum which boosts Culture and Tourism.

What’s better, Civ 5 or Civ 6?

The gameplay between the two games is not extremely different, however, Civ 6 has better late-game performance and there is a notable visual graphical style between the two genres.

In Civ 5, you will notice that in the late game on large maps, your computer will slow to a crawl even if you have a very powerful computer. In Civ 6, this simply does not occur. It appears that Civ 5 was not optimized to use your hardware to its maximum potential. For this reason alone, we would recommend Civ 6 as the better game of the two.

The second key difference is the graphical style. Civ 6 is notably more “cartoony” and Civ 5 appears more realistic. This is a matter of preference.

The gameplay itself is remarkably robust in both games. We have spent hundreds of hours in both games we cannot pick one as more fun than the other. You can check out our Civ 5 Tier List here.

Summary

Going back to the meat and potatoes of this article, we ultimately recommend playing with whatever Tier you want! It’s a game, it’s meant to be fun. Whether you’re playing as an S-Tier civ or a LOL-Tier civ, you can rest assured you will still utter “just… one… more.. turn..” under your breath, as you play into the middle of the night. Have fun!

Some background information:

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI was released in 2016 and is still a popular game, with a Metacritic score of 88 and 9.5 scores from different publications. So far, Civilization 6 received four major expansions: Rise and Fall, Gathering Storm, Red Death, and New Frontier.

The last expansion, New Frontier was released this year in May, and it has brought four downloadable content packs. Pack five will be added in January 2021 and Pack six will be available in March 2021.

The purpose of the game is to:

• Found cities and manage them so that they continually grow;
• Create various improvements around the cities to promote growth and productivity, such as farms and mines;
• Explore randomly generated maps with scouts and other units;
• Develop a military to defend against and attack roaming barbarians and other civilizations;
• Advance your technology, government structure and culture between the Ancient Era and Future Eras; and,
• Manage diplomatic relations and trade with other civilizations

Civilization 6 is available for a long list of platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Android, macOS, iOS, Windows PC, Linux, Classic Mac OS, and the next-generation platforms PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Special Thanks to Twitch Streamer CivCenturion who undertook some truly exceptional analysis in preparing some of the rankings for this Civ 6 Tier List. ProClockers modified some of these tables for easy reading.

Want more Civilization content? Check out our Civ 5 Tier List here, and our detailed Civ 6 Guide here.

If you enjoyed this list, don’t forget to check out our other tier lists:

• Warframe Weapon Tier List
• URF Tier List – League of Legends
• Raid: Shadow Legends Tier List
• Azur Lane Tier List
• FGO Tier List – Fate Grand Order

Who’s your favorite Civ 6 Leader? Leave a comment below.